Hi there! I see lots of articles on syncing entire Outlook calendars into Asana but I am wondering how to sync an individual calendar event into Asana.
Context: my manager schedules specific events in her Outlook calendar that I need integrated into a specific Asana board. Instead of having her schedule the meeting in Outlook AND creating the task in the Asana board, I’m wondering if there is a way for her to go into her Outlook event and sync it to the Asana board.
I’ve successfully configured everything except for the task duration.
The duration should be calculated between the start and end times of the meeting.
Do you know in which format I can integrate this via Zapier? Could you assist me with this?
Up until now, I’ve only been able to set a fixed one-hour duration for tasks.
My objective is to dynamically determine the duration of the Asana task based on the start and end date/time of the meeting.
However, I haven’t found a reliable way to add this feature to the Asana task.
Just for your information,
if needed, I found the solution for the duration of my task using Zapier.
By creating a first step: ‘compare the start date and end date,’
and then a second step: ‘convert this difference into minutes’.
I’m not a fan of using Zapier in-between but glad you found this solution. I do use Zapier as it seems to be the only way to get some things linked and most of the time it works fine but just adds another layer of complexity.
Have you found a way of manually just sending an Outlook event to Asana? (Similar to how you can add emails from Outlook to Asana with the add-in)
Thanks for the update. I’m sure some will find it useful.
Hi guys! I am with zzBots! I found a simple solution to Priyanka’s problem specifically. Using zzBots, you can simply specify a category on your event in Outlook and only that event will sync over to Asana.
I created a Bot Pack that is very easy to set up and has step by step instructions with images on the Bot install page.
Asana Premium is required to sync both “Start” and “Due” dates, So for those of you who don’t have it, I built a Bot Pack for you guys as well.
If you run into any issues feel free to contact us on our website!
Thanks for figuring this out. Looks like the Outlook integration got an update which changed the way the Start Date and End Date data was formatted. So my old method didn’t work when I just went to setup a new user.
I’m not sure of your exact steps, but mine went something like the below. I’d recommend creating a test event that is 1hour 30minutes long before so you can use it to confirm your total meeting duration in minutes are correct.
Step 1: New Calendar Event in Microsoft Outlook to pull calendar events
Step 2: Use the Zapier Format Step.
Event = Date/Time
Transform = Compare Dates
For values, input the “Start Date” and “End Date Value”
Test, and confirm you are getting the correct “Output Hours” and “Output Minutes”
Step 3: Use the Zapier Format Step.
Event = Numbers
Transform = “Perform Math Operation”
Operation = Multiply
Values (Inputs) = “2. Output Hours: X” and “60”
Your output should now be the equivalent in minutes to how many hours you calculated in step 2
These values are the minutes you calculated in step 2, added to the minutes you calculated in step 3. Which is adding the total minutes of the scheduled meeting since we aren’t given the total minutes as a data field from the Outlook event.
When testing, your output show now be the total duration of the meeting in minutes.
This may work for syncing new events, but for a more complete sync zzBots may be the solution. I previously posted a reply with what I think is the best way to currently do this (3rd party). zzBots automatically handles the date formatting behind the scenes so you don’t need to.
